January 10, 2010 -- Arizona Republic (AZ)

New Drug Law Changes Little In Mexico

By Dennis Wagner, The Arizona Republic

AGUA PRIETA, Sonora -- A few blocks from the municipal police
station, on the morning after a cartel gunfight took four more
lives in Sonora, drug dealers cruise the streets of La Zona Roja
with cellphones in their hands.

Addicts in a local treatment center say these "carros
alegres," or happy cars, bring crack cocaine to consumers
with all the speed and reliability of a pizza delivery.

The happy cars are one more sign of Mexico's growing drug-abuse
problem and serve as a backdrop to the government's decision
in August to decriminalize the possession of small amounts of
narcotics. When the measure was adopted, President Felipe Calderon
and Mexico's Congress said they wanted to concentrate law-enforcement
efforts on the ruthless cartels that are blamed for an estimated
13,000 deaths since Calderon declared a war on drugs in December
2006. Calderon also said decriminalization of personal-use quantities
would thwart corrupt Mexican cops who sometimes shake down drug
users for bribes.

The measure incited controversy from Mexico City to Washington,
D.C. Legalization advocates suggested that America's closest
neighbor and ally in the drug war had finally recognized the
waste of filling prisons with non-violent addicts who need treatment
rather than punishment. Drug-enforcement hard-liners warned that
eliminating criminal charges for drug abuse would lead to increased
public consumption and addiction, perhaps even spawning narco-tourism
by Americans looking to get high legally in Mexico.

That the happy cars still cruise about Agua Prieta suggests
that critics and supporters overestimated the law's possible
effects, both on drug violence and the scourge of addiction.

The reform seems to have had more impact in the rhetorical
war over drug decriminalization than it has on Mexican streets.
Rather than claiming victory, legalization advocates say the
new law may even make things worse because of the way it's written.
Conversely, anti-legalization groups condemn the measure because
it appears to legitimize drug abuse.

Beneath the lofty debate, cops, treatment counselors, government
officials, researchers and addicts interviewed last month said
there have been no discernible changes related to the new law.

Police still arrest and incarcerate drug users. Americans
have not flocked to dope parlors south of the border. Mexican
narcotics abuse surges unabated, as does the flow of drugs and
blood.

At the municipal police station in Agua Prieta, Jose Martin
Lopez, commander of an anti-narcotics unit, said the enforcement
business remains "exactly the same as it was before."

Kenn Morris, president of a San Diego market research firm
that represents the Tijuana tourism bureau, said there is no
sign of Americans visiting the border town to use drugs legally.
As for the new law's overall impact, he added: "It was a
big yawn."

Treatment Centers

While public attention focuses on violence and corruption
spawned by drug cartels, more damage is hidden away in a Nogales
barrio, behind a locked gate with walls topped by barbed wire.

The treatment center is temporary home to 180 addicts, alcoholics
and psychiatric cases. Most express ignorance of Mexico's new
measure, and many criticize the idea of decriminalization.

"If the law allows us to have a little bit of drugs,
then we as addicts will only carry a little bit and a little
bit," says Juan Manuel Rodriguez Arroyo, a heroin junkie
for 32 years who now serves as volunteer director of the Nogales
shelter. "It's bad symbolically. It says you can use and
nothing will happen."

Marin, a recovering user as well as administrator, leads visitors
past men cooking supper in a cauldron over a wood fire to a windowless
detox unit. Several recent arrivals, wrapped in blankets, squint
and groan as sunlight breaches the room's darkness.

Next door, in an assembly hall, about three dozen guys take
turns proclaiming that they are addicts. A young man in a Denver
Broncos jacket, using heavy street slang, orates about the pain
he has brought to his family, the damage he has done to himself.

Along Sonora's northern border zone, this is one among dozens
of treatment facilities, a sanctuary for crackheads, tweakers,
huffers, junkies and boozers. Some residents were committed by
police. Some were brought by family members. A few admitted themselves.

At the treatment center in Agua Prieta, a 13-year-old boy,
the only child among 84 adults, says he began sniffing inhalants
three years ago, then got hooked on cocaine. This is his third
time in rehab.

Another cocaine addict, 22-year-old Arturo Quijar Rodriquez,
says his wife forced him into recovery because he was neglecting
the family. Rodriguez, a municipal police officer, says he is
hoping to be back on day shifts soon, while still spending nights
in the treatment center.

During a series of interviews at two Sonoran shelters, the
stories of dozens of men seemed to blur into one. All started
using drugs with friends, wound up dealing or smuggling, spent
time in prison. Now, in rehab, they are unanimous in declaring
that they want to stay clean.

"It's just like the same movie over and over with a different
actor," says Francisco Cardenas, one of the clients.

Legal Controversy

The federal decriminalization law, which took effect Aug.
21, calls for suspects caught with small drug quantities to appear
before a prosecutor, who must determine whether the possession
was for personal use or trafficking. Mexico's government contends
the statute merely codifies what already was a legal reality.

The limits include 5 grams for marijuana (about three to six
joints, depending on size) and 500 milligrams of cocaine (roughly
five doses, or "lines"). Those found to be users must
be released with a referral to health authorities, though it's
unclear how many referrals are made or whether they work.

At the same time, the law gives Mexico's state and local police
more drug-fighting authority. For instance, the measure empowers
them to prosecute street drug dealers, a job previously limited
to the federal government. It also calls for a central operations
center housing drug-enforcement units at all levels in each state.
And it toughens penalties -- four to eight years in prison --
for anyone caught selling even tiny amounts of narcotics.

Finally, the measure allows one year for Mexico's state and
local authorities to adopt corresponding personal-use laws and
three years to implement them.

But nearly half a year into the new law, many legalization
advocates view Mexico's change more as a setback than a victory.

Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, a coalition that favors
decriminalization, said most addicts buy drugs in quantities
greater than allowed under the measure, so the law in reality
would not even decriminalize most "personal use."

"It's not clear yet whether this is three steps forward
or two steps forward and three steps backward," he said.

John Walsh, a senior associate at the Washington Office of
Latin America, a non-governmental organization that promotes
social and economic justice, predicts that Mexico's law will
wind up putting more drug users in prison at greater public expense.
Because penalties increase for possessing drugs beyond the allowed
amounts, he said, the measure also may worsen police corruption,
giving officers greater leverage for extortion.

Those who favor rigid enforcement standards are just as critical
of Mexico's new standard but for opposite reasons.

"It's a bad message to kids," said Calvina Fay,
executive director of Drug Free America Foundation, noting that
there is even grass-roots opposition to legalization south of
the border. "This is not what moms and dads and grandmas
(in Mexico) want for their children. They recognize that drug
use is harmful to families."

Fay warns that any softening of enforcement will create safety
hazards on highways and in workplaces. She rejects the idea that
allowing personal-use amounts will somehow reduce police bribery
scams.

"Decriminalizing drugs isn't going to clean up their
corruption," she said. "And I don't think it will make
one bit of difference as far as easing up the violence."

The Larger Debate

Because of such philosophical differences, Mexico's reform
has emerged as a talking point in the renewed debate over the
war on drugs.

Walsh recently co-wrote a report that says decriminalization
is spreading through Latin America: Ecuador, Argentina, Brazil,
Columbia and now Mexico all have had recent court decisions or
legislation eliminating personal-use narcotics offenses.

Walsh said there is little statistical information so far
on the impact of decriminalization in Latin America. But in Portugal,
where possession of drugs was decriminalized in 2001, research
shows improved government control of product safety and distribution,
among other issues, without an increase in narcotics use -- and
without a surge in recreational-drug tourism from surrounding
nations.

In the United States, meanwhile, debate has focused primarily
on cannabis: Thirteen states already have adopted so-called medical
marijuana laws. (Arizona voters are expected to cast ballots
on a proposition this fall.) Fourteen states have reduced pot
possession from a crime to the equivalent of a traffic ticket.
And in October, the Justice Department announced that it will
no longer raid properly registered dispensaries of medical marijuana.

Legalization proponents contend these are signs of a nation
and world recognizing that the strategy of arrest and imprisonment
of drug users is fundamentally flawed. They argue that legal
regulation of narcotics would break cartel monopolies while reducing
violence, corruption and prison overcrowding. They also contend
that the billions of dollars now spent on enforcement could be
shifted to treatment and education.

Walter McKay, Mexico City director for Law Enforcement Agents Against Prohibition,
said the war on drugs created a lucrative black market that perpetuates
cartels and their mayhem. "This is a bloody, costly war,"
he said. "It's slowly moving toward anarchy."

But in the Nogales rehab center, 55-year-old Carlos Hernandez
said a quarter-century of addiction to cocaine and heroin have
convinced him that even tiny amounts of narcotics endanger society.

"Oh, yes, it should be illegal," he said. "It
destroys lives."

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